ALCOHOLIC POISONING IN MAMMALS [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sta,—Mr. W. E. Lloyd in your last issue questions my statement that alcoholic poisoning is not inherited. In Yucatan, he says, the planters do not give the alcoholic residuum of the sisal plant to cattle, because "while apparently harmless to the animals consuming it, it causes the calves to die early of dysentery, besides giving evidence of marked degeneration."
His query is due to confusing two quite distinct issues. One would expect the calves to suffer if their mothers are aleoholized when pregnant, for it is equivalent to aleoholizing the calves themselves at the most susceptible time of life. But the poison is not inherited ; to be that it must be capable of being handed on from either father or mother,
and through more than one generation. This damage to a quality of the stock has never , been known—with the curious, temporary exception of Stoekard's guinea-pigs, which would take too long to explain.—! am, Sir, &e., YOUR REVIEWER.
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